The Future Is Dark
by StarRunner1
Summary: When Happy gets bored, she tinkers. And that's what she did today, except the result wasn't what she expected. Team Scorpion is transported to the future, and straight into a maze. They use their genius to quickly get through the phases, but W.I.C.K.E.D. wants them on their side. ON HIATUS!
1. The Glitch

The Glitch

When Happy gets bored she tinkers and builds that's what she did today but then a major glitch opens a wormhole that sends team scorpion to the future. They end up in the middle of a giant maze. Outside it the world is scorched, all the governments have come together to form one powerful organization trying to find a cure to a deadly virus. The future needs geniuses.

Happy tapped the wrench against the table, lost in thought and staring blankly at the metal contraption before her on the floor. Her ankles were crossed on top of a short wooden stool and wires, bolts, screws, panels, buttons, tools, and more littered the table and ground. Team Scorpion had not received a mission for a peaceful week, but Happy loved the action and the brainpower required, definitely not people getting drowned like on Christmas though. The poor kid tha got trapped in the cave was saved by his adrenaline helping with blood flow and oxygen amounts but the public knew it simply as a miracle.

Right now Happy knew that she would need a miracle to make her aging device work. This was one of the few times that Happy had made such a huge mistake, but she tried to get it to work anyway. Hopefully she could finish it before Toby came back from getting donuts and coffee, but for now she had some peace and quiet. Walter, Paige, Drew, Ralph, and Sylvester were out eating breakfast and Cabe had whatever other missions that didn't require team Scorpion's expertise. Happy hopped down off of her chair, she finally knew what she had to do; the citrus would have to be applied to the subject but the opposite of it, a natural and pure substance like water, would reduce the effect or even reverse it. A powerful acid would have worked the best in conveying the negative energy but it would burn or poison the subject which didn't help.

Happy picked up the tiny wildflower bud she had found outside and dumped the citrus on it, citrus easily gained from the concentration of five lemons worth of juice into one cup. She then popped open the panel and adjusted the time interval to 1-2 weeks then hit a red button to confirm her choice. She flipped a yellow switch for a small spotlight on the bud and then a green one to start the aging-beam. Before her eyes the flower slowly began to open up and grow ever so slightly, so it find work!

"Are you sure?" Happy heard Paige's voice just outside the front door.

"Yes, I'll drop off Ralph and be back within the hour!" Drew's voice.

"Okay then." Paige again and after that Sylvester opened the front door followed by Walter and then Paige.

"Hey, I got the coffee and donuts!" Toby emerged from the garage, he probably came through the back door, "And what is that?" He asked, looking at the contraption as he approached the table.

"Aging device." Happy replied simply as Toby placed the Donuts and Coffee on the one open space on Happy's desk.

"Time travel?" Asked Paige.

"Wormhole?" Sylvester glanced at the whiteboard, probably already calculating how such a small machine would create one.

"No, no. That's not possible. I believe that Happy simply made a device that can imitate the effects of aging or time taking it's toll."Walter added.

"For a team of geniuses-" Toby started but Walter cut in.

"Don't even say it." Toby nodded in reply and grabbed a blueprint of the machine off Happy's desk. He swiveled towards Happy but as he did knocked over one of the two cups of coffee, spilling it's contents over the many nuts and bolts on the cold floor.

"Woah! Sorry Happy!" Although it luckily appeared that none of it had hit her device.

"Get the coffee out of here!" She growled and Toby picked up the cups and donuts, carefully backing away. Paige grabbed a rag off the kitchen counter and rushed forwards, quickly cleaning up the coffee mess.

"How does it work?" Paige asked and Happy carefully picked it up and moved it to the center of the room.

"Like this." Happy dumped more citrus but this time onto a scrap of metal. She re-aligned the beam and Spotlight then adjusted the time to '40-50 years' from now and pressed the red button, then flipped the green switch. The beam seemed to be working and the others looked impressed, until suddenly sparks erupted from the device. They showered Happy and Paige, and almost reached Sylvester and Walter, Toby stood a couple of steps out of the spark's reach.

The device began to jump and rattle as team Scorpion backed away from it, it emitted a low whine, then a high-pitched squeal of resist. Suddenly the lights winked out and the machine stopped, Cabe stood with the power cable in his hand.

"What-" he was immediately cut by the machine which suddenly projected a beam that swept the whole room. Team Scorpion disappeared in a bright flash of light.


	2. Awaken To Darkness

The team was dumped into darkness. A cold mesh-walled room surrounded them and white lights flashed by as the lift ascended. Red light blinked brightly high above them, growing quickly closer and emphasizing the speed of the lift. All around were crates and boxes, a couple of nets and loose coils of rope littered the floor. They were pressed down by gravity but supported themselves cautiously on the various boxes.

"What just happened?" The team couldn't see well enough to see who was talking but recognized Cabe's voice.

"Well, the effects of the aging device were twisted and changed dramatically by a simple short circuit but further because of-" Sylvester began but was cut off by Happy.

"We're in the future." She dead-panned and felt around the room to find the crates and her friends, "I think Toby had something to do with it."

"What?! The coffee never touched your time-machine! I swear, it had nothing to do with it!" Toby tried to explain but couldn't think of a valid excuse or explanation.

"Sorry Happy, but he's right. It must have been a glitch in your machine, the spill was not a variable. We need to focus here though. We are trapped inside of an elevator in the future." Walter said. Cabe looked around at the dark lift,

"So this is what becomes of your genius station eh?"

"Well technically no. What I was trying to say is that this is also a wormhole, time and space, places, locations, it was all warped. We could even be on Mars for all we know although that is highly unlikely due to gravitational levels and oxygen, unless new tech can take care of that and many other problems." Sylvester's voice was harried and he took quick, short, breaths.

"Claustrophobic Sylvester?" Toby asked and he could just barely make out Sylvester nodding as another row of lights zipped by. Sylvester has many fears; of the dark, tight spaces, germs, drowning, among many, many, others, it was obvious that he would be distressed in this situation as well. The entire team felt sick to their stomachs by the shifting and blinking lights and the sharp jerks and scraping noises as the lift moved drunkenly upwards. Walter looked up at the fast-approaching red lights,

"I'm guessing those red lights mean the end of the line. No sooner had he said this then the lift reached the end of the line, the team being thrown down to the ground as a result of the impact.

"Hey, I found something-well, someone." the newly found, and slightly brighter red light showed Happy's silhouette and that of a much shorter and chubby person that she held upright by one arm.

"That's not Ralph." Paige sounded worried but happy that her beloved son hadn't also been thrown into this horrid situation. The person groaned and they could tell that it was a young boy, but much older than Ralph, as soon as he spoke,

"Huh? Who are you people? Where am I?" His voice was raspy and scratchy as if he had screamed for hours then not made a sound for a week. He was also very obviously frightened. Team Scorpion was stuck with the kid who rambled, talked, and asked all kinds of questions which some only Paige bothered to try and answer, for another seven minutes before the doors overhead finally cracked open slowly. For a couple of seconds the sudden sunlight was blinding but they quickly adjusted, except for the boy who claimed that he couldn't remember his name- or anything else about his past. Voices came from the outside of the hole in the ground where the box was, they were anxious, upset, confused, and many other negative emotions but not necessarily angered luckily. A rope was lowered as an authoritative voice spoke up,

"Welcome to the Glade."

Author's Note:) I'm glad that you liked this enough to go to the next chapter, but I have another story called 'The Talented Glade' which is my top-priority, but since these chapters aren't too long I will probably update just as often. And no, this IS NOT proofread, and I'm sorry if they seem OOCish.


	3. Here We Stand

"Welcome to the Glade. My name's Alby and you're the first people over eighteen to ever arrive and we've never had any girls either." They didn't know where they were or how exactly they had arrived here even with the best explanations they still didn't seem likely. Time-travel was impossible, no one can do it, not even highly advanced future tech could ever in infinity do this. They didn't know why there were all those teenage boys standing above them, or where they even were for that matter, why the boys were here, there was an infinite amount of questions that could be asked. First however, the team climbed out, the amnesia boy was pulled out by one of the boys last.

All around them were four huge gray walls stretching up like skyscrapers. They were littered with ivy, cracks, and holes and there were four openings split evenly down the rock in the center of each side. The 'Glade' had trees in one corner, animals in another and a huge barn, a building that Scorpion presumed was their house in the third corner, and crops in another. Everything within the Glade was organized it seemed, but now the team observed the boys. They were of all ages ranging from 12-13 to 17-18, and all wore ragged dirty clothes and frayed shoes. The boys were of all ethnicities which made it clear that they were from all over the world, and for some reason had been gathered here.

"Yup, we are definitely in the future, somewhere." Toby was the first to speak.

"What?" An Asian boy looked at them in confusion. So far the boys had been pretty quiet.

"Who are you? Are you the creators?!" A voice from the crowd called out.

"Well, we don't know who the 'creators' are but we'll introduce ourselves. I'm Paige." The boys scrutinized the new girl.

"I'm Sylvester."

"Toby."

"Happy."

"Agent Gallo."

"Walter, this is team Scorpion."

"A team of geniuses made to tackle world-wide problems that nobody else can." Cabe explained.

"Cabe is our government handler. He gives us the problem, we solve it. Paige isn't exactly one of us but her son is, Paige helps us to understand people." Walter told the gladers and looked at the four tall stone walls, "So what's the problem here?"

"This is the Glade. Every night when those doors close, monsters we call Grievers emerge, on the other side is a maze. And it's been unsolvable as long as we've been here." Alby explained. Walter was the first in the team to speak,

"What if the way out isn't the actual maze?" Sylvester shifted uncomfortably, what Alby had told them definitely scared him, but since they were older it didn't sound like he was holding anything back. However Sylvester did speak though rather shakily,

"Are there-" he stopped to take a deep breath trying not to hyperventilate, "Are there any...inconsistencies? In the-" he took another breath, "Maze?" The boys looked confused, again. He continued, "I mean anything..." Walter finished Sylvester's sentence,

"Anything that doesn't match? That seems out of place?" The Asian kid caught on.

"Like the cliff..."he mused and nodded to a couple other boys around him, "You shanks agree?" He asked them. They nodded back and he turned to the adults triumphantly, while they thought about the 'Gladers' strange vocabulary, and the maze too of course.

"I think the maze- and the 'Grievers'- are mechanical. I mean it is the future so...technology is advanced, even though this place looks pretty run-down." Happy said and Toby continued with,

"These shanks built it, they at least have something though."

"Shanks?"

"Yeah, that's what they've been saying. It basically means-"

"I know what it means Shank."

"Enough you two!" Cabe interrupted, "Somedays you're geniuses, and others you're children. That's what this is like for me!" Toby and Happy surprisingly fell silent and tuned back into the main conversation, which had continued without them.

"Deal then, we'll find it." Walter was saying. Although Toby and Happy had no idea what he agreed to. Probably to find the exit, in return for...shelter...and food, the basics. They still hurried after him to ask anyways though as the group was lead away from the 'box'.


	4. How To Crack A Code

"How are we supposed to figure out the code?" Cabe asked the group. Walter suddenly slammed his palm on the table and shook the weak wood. Paige immediately took a step towards him, but he turned around and folded his hands behind his head, walking a few steps away.

"Well he isn't helping." Toby stated, earning a sharp look from both Happy and Cabe, "What? It's true. He's anxious and frustrated that he can't figure out this problem when he solved so many others."

"Well you're not helping either." Happy retorted. It was then that Walter turned around and faced them again. His eyes were focused determinedly on something that only he could see, as if calculations were flying past his eyes. He finally stepped back to the table and put his hands down on either side of one of the maps they had been studying.

Earlier, after Walter made the deal and Scorpion had a long conversation (meaning half-argument) about it, the maze, the Glade, the boys, and every other possible variable, the boys had taken them to the Map-Room. The boys were highly doubtful of it, but Walter was determined to solve the maze TODAY.

He argued that the boys were just kids and that they wouldn't be smart enough to solve the maze anyways, and that was why they hadn't escaped. Happy argued that whoever created the maze might have purposefully made it impossible to solve. And Toby commented that it was like a test.

"Like...mice in a maze. There's a purpose, and obviously you don't just put random kids in a maze for NO REASON! So, they're looking for something-"

It was then that Happy cut in with, "-or someone. They must be trying to find...the best kid I guess? That doesn't explain why they would do it with only boys though..."

"Unless they're not! These boys are teenagers, hormones would probably make them lose concentration." Sylvester added. He had been listening carefully to the conversation silently until then. Suddenly Walter looked up and said simply,

"You're on the right track." The team was silent for a moment, trying to gauge if he would say anything else. He gestured towards the ceiling where sunlight was peeking through the cracks. He turned back to his team and asked, "Who says they couldn't build a ladder and make their way across the too of the walls? There must be something stopping them. Happy, would you like to test it?" Happy grinned and rubbed her hands together,

"Definitely." She replied. Happy walked out the doors of the Map Room without another word, Toby and Sylvester trailing behind her. Cabe and Paige refocused their attention on Walter. Their leader stood in contemplative silence for a minute before jogging to the other side of the room and pulling the 'Sector 1' chest away from the wall.

"Got any ideas? With a room full of maps there should be an answer somewhere." Cabe said as he followed Walter's example and pulled out the 'Sector 2' chest. Walter reached in the chest and fished around until he found the very first map the boys had made.

"A sequence...or any pattern at all has to be here! They might want to make this hard, and there may not be an answer to the maze, but no equation is unsolvable!" Walter exclaimed angrily, holding up the map to his team mates. He began sifting through the chest again until he came up with the maps for the second through fifteenth days. Paige glanced between the two before doing the same with the 'Sector 3' chest.

Ten minutes later they had organized everything on the table for the first thirty days and were going over them to try and figure out what exactly the pattern was. Paige was holding up one of the maps to face the light of a window when she suddenly had an idea.

"What if the answer is a code? If somehow programming the code is the way out?" Even Walter looked surprised at her idea. He nodded slowly and looked over the maps.

"You might be right...get Sylvester in here, now!" He ordered and Cabe nodded once, swiftly leaving the room. Walter held up a map to the light and turned to Paige. He spoke triumphantly, "I think we just figured out the maze."


	5. The Beginning of the End

C5 of The Future Is Dark,

Author's Note:) I'm so sorry that I haven't been updating this story! I put everything on my school iPad and they took it away for the summer, and the day I'm typing this note is when finally became unrestricted. (And now it's a month later and I realized that I forgot to even post this chapter.)

"We need wax paper people!" Toby shouted to the boys in the kitchen, enjoying being able order people around for once. The boys looked at him with confused expressions but still did as he said. Their leader, or keeper as they called him, was nick-named Frypan as he refused to be called by his real name. Frypan calmly put down his wooden bowl and walked across the kitchen to a small cabinet. He pulled out a roll of wax paper and handed it to Toby.

"Is that enough?" He demanded gruffly. Toby nodded quickly and power-walked out if the kitchen and back to the Map Room where his friends were waiting. Happy was measuring planks of wood as the rest of the team conversed. Toby held up the wax paper,

"Got it! So, what's the plan?" Walter snatched the roll from Toby and went back into the hut. Toby raised his eyebrows but instead commented on the machine Happy was building, "Is there any chance that this will send us back to the past?"

"Nope." Happy answered. Paige looked over Happy's blueprint and handed it to Toby. It was a catapult, but with adjustments that made it able to shoot nearly straight upwards. Happy had made something quick and simple, yet complicated at the same time.

"Because of the estimated length of the Glade, and height of the walls, if we launch it longways, it should reach the top of the walls about halfway down." Sylvester elaborated as he gestured to the Glade, "And we'll make it out of branches, leaves, and twine so that it doesn't crush anything, although I believe it will hit somewhere about three-quarters down, depending on the actual height of the ceiling. If there is none, it will simply land in the maze."

"Sounds pretty good to me." Said Toby. Happy snorted, knowing that he didn't have any experience to be able to judge it himself. Toby handed the blueprint back to Paige and headed into the hut. Cabe and Walter were tracing the mazes onto the wax paper, and already had three done, Walter being the quicker and more precise drawer. Walter glanced up as Toby entered,

"Can you get the others in here? I want to get this done as quickly as possible." Toby nodded and spun back around to face the door.

"Sure thing boss." He replied and popped his head out of the hut, "Hey guys! Walter needs help." Happy continued measuring as Paige and Sylvester hurried over. Walter showed them what to do and soon they had all the maps for the first day done. He laid them on the table stacked perfectly then held them up to the light. An F was clearly in the center of the papers.

"We'll finish tracing today or tomorrow morning and the catapult will be ready to launch tomorrow as well. Good job..." Walter trailed off. He knew it was impossible to finish everything before the sun (or at least the imitation of it) went down, but at least they had most of it figured out. The letters probably spelled something, or were just a sequence or code they could punch in somewhere. But where could the exit possibly be?

The only place that didn't fit in the puzzle was the cliff, but the answer could be on, or in, the maze walls as well. But what was the purpose of the experiment in the first place? There were so many questions they could ask, but so few that the Gladers had answers to. One of the most important things however was what laid out there beyond the maze? What had become of their world? Why would the government allow WCKD to do something like this?

Was this the end of the world? The apocalypse that ends their universe? Maybe, just maybe it is. Why else would something like this take place? The strange thing was, that the more questions Walter asked himself, the more he started to figure things out. A maze like this must have cost millions, or even billions, of dollars. Life isn't the Hunger Games, there must be a purpose. The hard truth was, that the future is dark.

Author's Note:) I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'm writing a short-story based on 'The Last Trials' by Scarlet the Starlet that's going to be called 'History Of A Glader'. It'll be out at some point...


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